By nature, I am not a superstitious person. But perhaps there is something to looking over one’s shoulder around the Ides of March.
On the other hand, when it comes to something like COVID-19, what’s the difference?
I noticed the other day that it’s been two years since I last set foot in the WWFM studios. Early in March 2020, with the whitetips of the coronavirus tsunami already visible on the horizon, all hosts of recorded specialty programs were asked to prepare five “evergreen” shows – shows that are not time-specific – to be aired over the coming weeks. That way, we could all hunker down in our homes until the coast was clear. Needless to say, this proved to be an underestimate.
Though the campus of Mercer County Community College has since reopened, and classes have resumed – even the college gym has been accessible for quite some time – part-time staff is unlikely to be called back anytime soon. I suspect it’s more of a budgetary than a safety issue at this point.
In any case, it’s unfortunate to have had my live air shifts curtailed in this way, and to not have access to a studio in order to be able to produce new recorded shows. At least I can dip into the archive for rebroadcasts of past episodes. That said, those stored on the station’s hard drive only go back as far as 2010, with perhaps a stray episode from 2009. I can make minor tweaks to these, if necessary, on my laptop, pending actually setting up a home studio, which I suppose I really should have done two years ago. I think WWFM must be the only radio station not to have it hosts continue broadcasting remotely, be it from a basement or a bedroom closet.
My last live air shift was on March 11, 2020. I didn’t know that it would be my last, so it was a show pretty much like any other, marked by a number of birthday observations (in this case, remembering composers Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles, Anthony Philip Heinrich, Astor Piazzolla, and Xavier Monstalvatge). Here’s the playlist for the first two hours:
4:00 HENRY COWELL, Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10
4:10 CARL RUGGLES, Men and Mountains
4:23 HENRY COWELL, The Fairy Answer
4:32 ANTHONY PHILIP HEINRICH, The Ornithological Combat of Kings (Grand Symphony)
5:03 ASTOR PIAZZOLLA – Histoire du Tango
5:25 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (arr. Marcilio Lopes) – Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV 828: Gigue
5:34 XAVIER MONTSALVATGE – Concerto breve
That was followed, at 6:00, by my weekly Wednesday feature, “Music from Marlboro,” programmed from the archive of live performances and commercially-released recordings from the Marlboro Music Festival. For this particular installment, I played the following:
6:04 JOHANNES BRAHMS – String Sextet No. 2 in G major
6:52 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH – Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major: Air
I was back in the station later in the week, to put some finishing touches on my production work, to be sure that all my evergreen shows were in place. That was on Friday the 13th. (I know, right?) The layoff notice arrived by email later that night.
I made my debut on WWFM all the way back on September 28, 1995. The 20th century! As with any job, at times it could be a bit of a wild ride, and I think I proved myself to be quite the tenacious bronco buster. In the end, it would take nothing less than a world health emergency to finally dislodge me. Six months shy of my Silver Jubilee, too!
Everything has been up in the air since then. But I’ve long since stopped holding my breath for the phone to ring. Repeated shows ensure that I continue to have somewhat of an air presence. But they are no substitute for assembling creative programs for live broadcast, the reward of spontaneously sharing music I love, and being able to respond in a meaningful way to current events on a somewhat daily basis.
I hate to think what my work mailbox must look like at this point. Beware the Ides of March!
